AGB Membership Fees 20/21

KidCurry

Well-known member
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This is where NFAS is different; a huge variety of bows and kit, old, new, a bit weird, slightly “Robin Hood,” hi tech, low tech, everything really.
But also less emphasis on this weeks kit; much more on technique and distance estimation; which I’m weak at!
I have always shot at the trailing edge of technology. It is usually as good as the latest developments but usually significantly cheaper :) My current pride and joy is a W&W AXT alu riser brought new discounted to £250 end of line sale with some Xtour limbs for £390 discounted, shot barebow with some super Bowstuff Gemini weights. Indoors setup is Mybo elite discounted to £275 new with very slight anodising marks, and some Mybo synergy air fiber/foam limbs that rock at 20yds for £67. Not the very latest stuff but still shoots as well as I do :)

ps... just filled out AGB survey and dumped all my thoughts on AGB at club level.
 
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geoffretired

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I filled out mine as well as I could. Some questions were impossible to answer as they didn't account for some of my previous answers.
If you look at a line of targets at a big competition, it almost screams precision, in the layout.
Field archery looks more down to earth,more homemade( and I do not mean that to sound unkind) It looks like archers will get about and do a variety of shooting. By looking at those differences you could probably choose your preference without shooting at either.
I guess Matt would have gone straight to field if he had seen both before he got started and if both were close enough.
 

Kernowlad

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I filled out mine as well as I could. Some questions were impossible to answer as they didn't account for some of my previous answers.
If you look at a line of targets at a big competition, it almost screams precision, in the layout.
Field archery looks more down to earth,more homemade( and I do not mean that to sound unkind) It looks like archers will get about and do a variety of shooting. By looking at those differences you could probably choose your preference without shooting at either.
I guess Matt would have gone straight to field if he had seen both before he got started and if both were close enough.
Possibly not; target gave us a good grounding in shooting (sort of in my case) accurately. Not sure that would have happened in field. We enjoyed it early on then it got a bit too stuffy/cliquey/repetitive.
 

geoffretired

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Thanks Matt, yes, I see that now.
What if you had done a beginners' course at a specialist place then went out to look at one of each type of setting?
 

Kerf

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AGB isn't the only archery organisation in the country, there is no need for you to join if you don't want to..
Is it though? I shoot target bare bow alongside Oly archers in my club. I only shoot target outdoors and indoors with my club. I do not want to shoot field or clout. I want to continue enjoying my archery in my club with my club mates whatever their discipline or whether or not they take part in competitions. So as I see it - and please correct me if I’m wrong - I need the cover of the club’s insurance to shoot on the club field. The club’s insurance is organised by AGB; ergo I need to be a member of AGB to be insured.
Further, some of my club mates shoot in local and regional comps both outdoors and indoors..
In order to do so they need to be members of AGB so the chances of the club opting out of AGB insurance in order to find its own (or opting out of AGB altogether) are minimal to nil.
In other words, if I want to keep shooting with my club, on my club field with the company of my club mates I am obliged to be part of AGB’s monopolistic closed shop.
Unless someone can rescue me and show me a way out!
 

Corax67

Well-known member
I looked at air rifle shooting a while back. Club fees varied massively. They ranged from £35/yr + shooting fees £3+ up to £155/yr which is where I stopped. All included insurance but I couldn't work out how transferable it was between organisations. There is, like archery, a range of organisations, BASA, BASc, WTSF, WAA, WRA, BTFA, UKAHFT, UKBR22, SSRA, SARPA etc.
The variation in airgun club fees is no different to that in archery - my club charge £35 per year, shoot outdoor only and twice a week but a club like Archeryfit in London who offer 80 hrs a week in a dedicated indoor 20m range charges £125 PER MONTH !

Club fees tend on the whole to be commensurate with the level of facilities offered by that club.

When I looked at the sport it was more expensive than archery.
That‘s not true.

For example equipment wise - my recurve setup is an Inno CXT, matching HMC22 long rod, extender & side rods, Shibuya sight and G3 limbs which rolled in about £2000 new, not including £150 for a set of ACC’s. My compound is a Hoyt Podium X with Shibuya sight, Shibuya scope and Nikon lens, another £2000 rig plus arrows.

An equally competitive precharged pneumatic (PCP) Field Target rifle such as an Air Arms S410 with a Hawke scope and charging kit is available at around £1200.

No club/person is forced to join AGB and can run autonimously. Clubs can operate completely on their own or belong to other organisations. And if you do want to shoot AGB comps you can join AGB as a direct member. So I don't think there is any real difference between the two. I do wonder why so many clubs feel the need to be associated with AGB. I guess it's a one-stop-shop, or the committee are AGB/GNAS ingrained and don't have the incentive to change what they know. But AGB is just one association among many.
You cannot shoot at an AGB affiliated club without being a member of AGB, either individually or via the club because it invalidates the clubs insurance supplied by AGB.

You can however be a member of an airgun club without having to join any other associative body and be covered under the clubs insurance - I know this because I spent decades shooting a wide variety of disciplines across many clubs before ever getting anywhere near a bow.

If I were to go to a Field Target competition this weekend to compete at a club near me I will be covered by their club insurance even though I am currently not a member of any club. I don’t need my own insurance or to be a member of whatever body they shoot under nor will I invalidate their insurance, rather my entry fee (usually between £6-£10) allows me to be covered.

There is a very real difference between the way the two sports operate.


Karl
 

dvd8n

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It does not seem unreasonable to me that, if you want to shoot at a specific club and that club has chosen to affiliate to AGB, that you have to join AGB.

Having said that, it does seem to me that AGB seems to want to operate as a closed shop. It seems to want to deliberately exclude archers from other societies* from visiting, from fun shoots and from competitions, usually citing insurance as a reason. That's not a good excuse in my opinion as AGB has arranged the insurance terms that it wants. They could easily arrange insurance with more permissive terms if they wanted to. I think that it's a deliberate ploy to Borg as many members as possible.

It has also been said that you can join AGB as a direct member to let you shoot; I don't really believe that they want you to do that either. Not only is it more expensive; they also insist on you joining an area/country/region too for some reason. I wouldn't actually mind joining SAA as a direct member as they seem quite active but why is it compulsory? Also I have not as yet managed to navigate the SAA website to a direct membership form. It's probably there but it's not obvious (to me anyway). And the West of Scotland Area? That only seems to exist as a Facebook page that reposts posts from other people. So I'd need to find some way of getting them their tithe. Or move house. They don't really want you to join directly. I'm sure it's all do-able but you'd need to be really bloody-minded to do it.


* Apart from the BLBS for some reason.
 
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English Bowman

Well-known member
This is where NFAS is different; a huge variety of bows and kit, old, new, a bit weird, slightly “Robin Hood,” hi tech, low tech, everything really.
But also less emphasis on this weeks kit; much more on technique and distance estimation; which I’m weak at!
AGB Field is the same, I think that the difference you see is more a field/target difference than an AGB/NFAS difference. I've seen someone with a modified walking stick for a longrod and another with a compound entirely (well apart from the strings) made of wood. Lots of longbows, flatbows and unsighted recurves.
 

bimble

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Is it though? I shoot target bare bow alongside Oly archers in my club. I only shoot target outdoors and indoors with my club. I do not want to shoot field or clout. I want to continue enjoying my archery in my club with my club mates whatever their discipline or whether or not they take part in competitions. So as I see it - and please correct me if I’m wrong - I need the cover of the club’s insurance to shoot on the club field. The club’s insurance is organised by AGB; ergo I need to be a member of AGB to be insured.
Further, some of my club mates shoot in local and regional comps both outdoors and indoors..
In order to do so they need to be members of AGB so the chances of the club opting out of AGB insurance in order to find its own (or opting out of AGB altogether) are minimal to nil.
In other words, if I want to keep shooting with my club, on my club field with the company of my club mates I am obliged to be part of AGB’s monopolistic closed shop.
Unless someone can rescue me and show me a way out!
There is nothing, literally nothing saying that you can't be a member of a different organisation and shoot target rounds. They're not copywrited. Archery New Zealand has York and Hereford rounds in their rule book. You just might not find much interest from members in other organisations to shoot them with you.

If an NFAS club had the space to put a target out at 100yds they could shoot a York. They could even have a competition for only NFAS members; they could even hold NFAS records for the round. Whether they'd get many people is a different question, but there is nothing stopping them.

You ONLY have to be a member if you want to shoot under their auspices, either by partaking in the tournaments run by their rules, or by being a member of an AGB club. No-one is forcing you to join that club. There are plenty of people who've had their entire shooting career in the UK and never have been members of GNAS/AGB.
 

KidCurry

Well-known member
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KC "When I looked at the sport it was more expensive than archery. "
That‘s not true....
Karl
No, I don't mean equipment. just Affiliation and club. I shoot/was shooting at least 4x a week. Both archery clubs I have been a full member of charged about £50/yr with no target/shooting fees. In contrast the air rifle clubs charged shooting fees. I don't remember the fee but it was more than £1/day. = £4+/week = £180/yr which dwarfed the membership fees. Other people in other areas will no doubt have different findings :)
 

Kerf

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There is nothing, literally nothing saying that you can't be a member of a different organisation and shoot target rounds. They're not copywrited. Archery New Zealand has York and Hereford rounds in their rule book. You just might not find much interest from members in other organisations to shoot them with you.

If an NFAS club had the space to put a target out at 100yds they could shoot a York. They could even have a competition for only NFAS members; they could even hold NFAS records for the round. Whether they'd get many people is a different question, but there is nothing stopping them.

You ONLY have to be a member if you want to shoot under their auspices, either by partaking in the tournaments run by their rules, or by being a member of an AGB club. No-one is forcing you to join that club. There are plenty of people who've had their entire shooting career in the UK and never have been members of GNAS/AGB.
In other words your answer to my question is actually “no”.
 

ArcheryFox

Active member
Thanks dvd8n. I very nearly posted a link to this a couple of days ago since there is a lot of good discussion on this thread, but also a degree of speculation too. It's useful to knowing in a bit more detail where money goes to (and comes from) and what AGB does behind the scenes.
I'm not saying here that membership does or does not represent value for money, nor whether it should go up or down, simply that it is good to see some informed argument in addition to anecdotal evidence which is valuable in its own way.

For example, the 'elite programme' appears to be covered almost entirely by a specific grant. However, the waters are a little muddy since it also says that 76p of senior membership goes towards elite sport... And 'elite' seems to imply recurve target(?) as compound training costs are listed as where £3.29 of my membership fee goes.
Sport England and UK Sport grants are dependant upon elite performances - I'm sure many remember that funding for archery was completely cut after 2016, with a reprieve granted only after Naomi and Patrick's world bronze in 2018. Even if this only funds the elite parts of the sport, it is money AGB save to spend elsewhere or reduce fees. I have to agree with an earlier statement in this thread, however, that the fantastic performances from the UK's field and 3D archers is often severely under-recognised.

Archery is an expensive sport, as has already been mentioned. Though some do it for relaxation and a weekend pastime with friends, there are others that aspire to be the nation's or world's best. To achieve this the coaching pathways and junior/training squads are vital. To stop funding these would risk making the sporting side (and perhaps others) of archery even more exclusive than it already is, and success only available for those who can afford coaching, travel, and competition. The work that has been done in recent years to build the performance pathway to take juniors from grassroots has been great in this regard, even if it could still go further...
Similar remarks can be made about the mentor scheme which I know has been successful in our area with growing grassroots archery in schools. As Kernowlad remarks, even though he found his home in NFAS field the AGB supported beginners' courses give a good grounding in how to shoot, and often much better than those run through other organisations in my personal experience.

1. Does AGB give good value for competitive archers?
Personally I benefit from the more 'sporty' side of Archery GB, but I think it is worth saying that even here I feel they have lost touch a little with what the average competitive archer wants and seem to favour the very elite. Examples of this from my point of view are the changes to the national ranking system that penalised those shooting locally in favour of those who can travel and enter National Tour events, and the format changes to the Masters this year to put everything at one distance with an emphasis on head-to-heads. I believe a lot of this is rooted with a particular individual at AGB - has anyone seen the utterly absurd tournament guidelines that were recently published!?


As a reflection from watching this thread I would like to finish up by saying that I think it is best to try and engage with AGB, make our voices heard, and exact change rather than rage quit. I say this as a member of both an AGB affiliated club, and an NFAS one; both societies have their merits and their downsides.
This is why I regularly respond when AGB ask for feedback (and sometimes when they don't ;)) and encourage others on here to do so too. I am actively involved with their working groups and my local organisations, and do my best to communicate my, and other's feelings and experiences. If AGB really isn't for you that's fine, but instead of just bashing them let's discuss how things can be improved and communicate this to them - the idea of tiered membership that has been discussed is a good example. I encourage everyone here to fill in the membership survey that was recently sent out.


A small footnote - at a recent county meeting we were told from a reasonably reliable source that it is likely AGB will reduce fees for renewing members next year, as English Bowman suggested on page 1 of this thread.
 

dvd8n

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I did the AGB survey and it made me think about stuff and brought a few things home to me.

Realistically my club probably isn't going to shoot again until the start of next year's outdoor season - by the time the rugby club opens it'll likely be too dark in the evenings and the school isn't going to want us for the indoor season.

So do I go and look for another club that is shooting? Will that club want to make space for me on the shooting line just until my old club re-starts? I doubt it. So do I move permanently? If I do that and so do other members, then that's a 50 year old club gone. Or do I just wait until (if) my club reopens? If I do wait until the club reopens then it's good for the club but bad for AGB as my club won't be taking money for AGB membership any time soon. Or do I just walk away?

From the slant of the questions AGB realise this and are trying to gauge how big of a problem they have on their hands.

I don't think that they know what to do about it though.

David
 

jerryRTD

Well-known member
Thanks Matt, yes, I see that now.
What if you had done a beginners' course at a specialist place then went out to look at one of each type of setting?
If he had done a beginners course he would still be struggling with a hand held release and TP. courses push you down one path. some times not the right one
 
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English Bowman

Well-known member
If he had done a beginners course he would still be struggling with a hand held release and TP. courses push you down one path. some times not the right one
It depends on the course you do. We, an AGB club, teach basic recurve style for the first month, then introduce the archers to longbow, barebow and compound. We also explain the differences between target, field and clout archery, and introduce our beginners to field as soon as they are competent enough to try it.
 

geoffretired

Supporter
Supporter
Jerry I think you will find that Matt's choice of release aid was made after reading posts on this forum.
I am not sure whether there was anyone showing him how to shoot compound on his beginners' course.
 
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